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PartitionMagic Question
I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically
"fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey |
#2
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Harvey Gratt wrote:
I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. -- Bob H Leeds UK |
#3
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Bob H wrote:
Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Thanks, Harvey |
#4
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"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. |
#5
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Rod Speed wrote:
"Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My current state of confusion is: 1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD. 2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition. 3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as you indicated) 4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS. My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does happen? Thanks, Harvey |
#6
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Harvey Gratt wrote:
Rod Speed wrote: "Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My current state of confusion is: 1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD. 2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition. 3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as you indicated) 4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS. My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does happen? Thanks, Harvey Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on? -- Bob H Leeds UK |
#7
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Bob H wrote:
Harvey Gratt wrote: Rod Speed wrote: "Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My current state of confusion is: 1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD. 2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition. 3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as you indicated) 4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS. My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does happen? Thanks, Harvey Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on? Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition and it would access the boot.ini file. Harvey |
#8
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Harvey Gratt wrote:
Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: Rod Speed wrote: "Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My current state of confusion is: 1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD. 2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition. 3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as you indicated) 4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS. My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does happen? Thanks, Harvey Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on? Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition and it would access the boot.ini file. Harvey Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options. In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top. Then un tick Hide protected operating system files. When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the others? Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others. -- Bob H Leeds UK |
#9
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Bob H wrote:
Harvey Gratt wrote: Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: Rod Speed wrote: "Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My current state of confusion is: 1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD. 2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition. 3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as you indicated) 4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS. My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does happen? Thanks, Harvey Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on? Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition and it would access the boot.ini file. Harvey Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options. In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top. Then un tick Hide protected operating system files. When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the others? Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others. It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process I described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to have wandered off course. I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition (originally the third partition)? A second question is: Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging? Thanks, Harvey |
#10
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Harvey Gratt wrote:
Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: Rod Speed wrote: "Harvey Gratt" wrote in message news Bob H wrote: Harvey Gratt wrote: I'm trying to verify whether PartitionMagic 8.01 will automatically "fix" the boot.ini file and the partition boot sector where it resides during the rearrangement of disk partitions. Specifically, say I have an XP primary, active partition as the third partition on my HDD. The first two partitions are logical partitions. Initially, the boot.ini file would point to the third partition. If I now delete the first two partitions so as to make the XP partition the first partition, will PartitionMagic automatically rewrite the boot.ini file to make it point to the first partition so as to make subsequent boot-ups possible? Thanks, Harvey I wouldn't have thought so. You are in fact delting the boot.ini file when you delete the first 2 partitions, so where will the boot.ini file be? Deleted as well, I say. You will have to create another boot.ini file on the same partition you want to boot from. I appear to be mis-understanding something. I thought the boot.ini file resided in the "partition boot sector" which, in the original setup, would have been located in the third partition (active, primary). If not where does it reside? Are the "partition boot sector (PBS)", boot.ini file always located at a specific location on the HDD - I thought this was true only of the MBR, which in turn pointed to the PBS (which is located at an arbitrary location). Is my understanding incorrect - it would appear so. Sounds comprehensively mangled to me. The boot.ini file is a file in a particular partition, it wont even fit in a PBS. More likely something works out which is the bootable partition on a particular physical drive and something works out where the boot.ini is from that and reads it from the appropriate partition. Dont know the answer to your original question, I'd personally ghost the entire physical drive so you can recover gracefully of PM didnt handle the deletion of the logical drives properly. Cant see why it shouldnt. I guess this gets down to understanding the boot process. My current state of confusion is: 1. The MBR is read from a fixed location on the HDD. 2. The code in the MBR eventually points to a bootable partition (there may be more than one, but I guess only one is active at a time) and jumps to the PBS of the active partition. 3. Code in the PBS then starts to load the OS, eventually reading the boot.ini file located in that partition's root directory (as you indicated) 4. Now, if the boot.ini file contains lines for mutiple OS's, a menu appears. A selection here would then cause a jump to the approriate partition for the loading of the selected OS. My head hurts. Does the above seem correct? If not, what does happen? Thanks, Harvey Where is NTLDR? Which partition is that on? Well, if my understanding is remotely correct, I would think it's located on the active partition pointed to by the MBR. I guess the MBR points to the PBS which contains code to start the loader function (NTLDR). NTLDR is probably located on the active partition and it would access the boot.ini file. Harvey Go to: Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options. In Folder Options click on the View tab at the top. Then un tick Hide protected operating system files. When you have done that, have a look in the root of each partition to loctate NTLDR. So, is it in the OS partition or any of the others? Anyway to keep things nice and sipmle, if you are only using 1 OS why don't you just put boot.ini in the ctaive Primary partition, if you are going to delete the others. It is in the root directory. So it appears that the 4 step process I described is essentially correct. However, this thread seems to have wandered off course. I guess the answer to the original question is that PartitionMagic (PM) WILL NOT correctly change the boot.ini file. So one question is, will the boot process get all the way to the active partition boot sector (PBS),via the MBR, (which I assume that PM CAN correctly set up) and then hang because the boot.ini file points to a non-existent partition (originally the third partition)? A second question is: Assume I install the Recovery Console in the OS in the original third partition. When I go thru all the manipulations as above, will the boot process bring up the Recovery Console (so I can fix the boot.ini file without needing an XP cd) instead of hanging? Thanks, Harvey What root directory of what partition is NTLDR in? I believe in the KISS theory, and like I said, if you are only using ONE OS, why don't you make sure NTLDR and boot.ini are in the root directory of the first active partition for the OS. I would not put trust in PM to rebuild/make place any files on another partition from whence they were moved. Sounds too complicated to me. -- Bob H Leeds UK |
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